HIMprov Returns! ("The Last Temptation of Ted St Claire!")

As you may or may not know, I have a side project Improv team, called HIMprov. We present an improvised, Christian-themed improv show, with ALL of our scenes based upon the philosophies of the Chick Tracts and the teachings of Jack Phelp's Kansas-based "God Hates Fags" church. We aren't trashing all Christians or even Christianity. We're actively trashing Religious Extremists and Intolerance.

We've created an entirely fictional church. We all have alter egos in the church. And we all have a history of unpleasantry that has made us vulnerable to the church's influence. Alcoholism. Homelessness. Drug Use. Sexual Perversity. Suicide. All of these things are in the past lives of our HIMprov troupes members.

But now they've found the Lord and the Army of Christ Church (1st Battalion). They've found my character, Pastor Bob, who subtly manipulates them into living at the compound and shunning the modern world, in favor of hard-core, religious worship and study.

As part of the church's OutReach Program, the youth minister, Nick, has begun booking these performances of a "Faith-based" Improv performance. A way of sharing the church's philosophies that are funny and fun! He's hooked up with one of the church's musicians, Darren, and they perform actual Christian Songs in the shows, to keep things light.

And it HAS to be kept light, because these guys are presenting the most painfully, un-subtle, agenda-driven, wooden, dry improv, a Chicago stage has ever seen. They do "NO OBJECT WORK" because that would be "worship of a false idol". So, they can't touch or interract with anything that isn't there. They are NOT performers and their characterizations are boring, dull and lifeless. And to make matters worse, they simply DON'T understand improvizational conventions that we take for granted. (The introductions are all wrong, they take too long, they break character to squabble onstage and they allude to the fact that all of these scenes are pre-rehearsed.) In short, they're terrible.

And they don't know it.

And in this way, do we slyly send up the Extremist Right Wing, Politically-Driven Fundamentalist Christian Groups. So terrible to watch, and so oblivious to how their agenda makes them intolerable.

If this entry has sold you on the show, you can check it out tomorrow night, at 9pm at The Playground Theater. Admission is $5. Tell anyone you know of, who might want to sit through a particularly painful trainwreck.

We've removed the brakes from the Holy Train, and the tracks go right into town, and we're high, high, high up on the hill. Tomorrow, at 9pm, we release the clutch and see how much damage she can do, when she's released into the town, going as fast as gravity can get her to go!

It should be brilliantly bad!

Cheers,
Pastor Bob